


All I Want Is A Taste

by ishie



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Food Porn, Gen, idefk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/pseuds/ishie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aside from his nearest and dearest, William has few weaknesses—malty dark beers, 180 gram vinyl, and a certain stubborn redhead with a propensity for finding the tenderest parts of his ego chief among them—but the greatest of all might be the kimchi quesadilla.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Want Is A Taste

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it was supposed to be competency!porn about CEO Darcy but then it was supposed to be food porn for trope_bingo and now it's just this. SO. Title's from a half-forgotten Phish song I never really knew in the first place, and that's about where we are right now.

Whenever he's working out of the Los Angeles office, William Darcy makes it a point to walk through the creative team's bullpen during the mid-morning break. Casually, that is, though he makes that particular stop at nearly the same time on every circuit. He might even leave a hole in his schedule—a schedule that doesn't really lend itself to holes.

Ostensibly his daily stroll through whatever office he's working in is part of his personal pledge to stay involved in all aspects of Pemberley Digital. One can't run a company effectively when one hides in one's office, after all, as tempting as the idea can sometimes be. 

Whenever William isn't in negotiations, or arguing with finance, or checking with legal about clearances, he walks the hallways. It's not always the same route, nor the same stops. Perhaps today he'll visit the mailroom to see how the new screeners are being packaged, or jot down notes on his phone during an overly technical conversation outside the server closet. 

Though he trusts his staff to do their jobs ably and well, William loves this daily walk in a way he loves few other things in life. Getting to know how each part of the whole functions on its own before stepping back to see how it all works together. But the reason his feet turn toward the southwest corner of the third floor every morning that he's in LA?

"Oh, sweet!" Inez crows as he rounds the corner, pushing back from her desk and smiling when she sees him. At the next desk, separated by a low glass wall nearly covered in post-its and dry erase marker, See leans back in her chair and waves before turning back to peer at her oversized monitor.

"Hey, Will, I was just telling See that Kogi's over on Alameda today. We should have enough time to hit it before the review with legal. You want anything?"

Aside from his nearest and dearest, William has few weaknesses—malty dark beers, 180 gram vinyl, and a certain stubborn redhead with a propensity for finding the tenderest parts of his ego chief among them—but the greatest of all might be Kogi's kimchi quesadilla.

He's no stranger to the wonderfully effective social media practices the food truck industry uses to advertise and to build organic relationships with their customer base. He covets their ROI and viral reach, the quick and easy way they react to market trends and analytics. He's fully aware that he could follow the company on Twitter to find out when they'll be nearby. He could check the website, or stop pretending Inez and See don't have his order memorized. But all of that feels too much like admitting his craving for the creamy, nutty, spicy, greasy, buttery, crispy slice of heaven that lands in his hands about once a month. 

His mouth waters just thinking about it.

It has to be by chance, though. Once, after a long flight back from New York, he stopped at the Naranja truck when he saw it on the way to the office, but the quesadilla was flat and rubbery and the kimchi too spicy. William's not a superstitious man, preferring to stake his convictions on hard fact, but that afternoon Pemberley lost the long-coveted _Ethan Frome_ adaptation rights to WGBH. Each and every rapturous review and award show nomination brought back the painful burn of chili oil in his throat.

Oh, but when he _isn't_ expecting it, there's nothing else in the world that will satisfy him half as well.

See and Inez are his unwitting enablers. The only non-smokers in their team, they hit Twitter every morning to scope out lunch options when their colleagues decamp to huddle at the far edge of the parking lot. (All Pemberley office managers are under standing orders to keep the break rooms well-stocked with local cessation program pamphlets and there's a support group that meets every afternoon on each campus, but it's not like William has the right to order people to quit. Everyone who works at Pemberley Digital is a valued employee, but they're not his personal servants, bound for life to obey his wishes. The most he can do is offer help when they decide the time is right, and to make sure their health care options are better than adequate.)

"It's my treat," he tells Inez, pulling out his wallet and handing her a crisp hundred. "Could you get enough for everyone in the review? We'll be in there a while, I fear." 

On the other side of the wall, See groans theatrically. She swears like a sailor on a good day, but on bad ones, days in which she's facing the prospect of legal tearing her campaigns apart, she can hardly muster words. Her ferocious glare melts into a laugh when she sees him shake his head in mock disapproval, though.

It's... refreshing. William normally doesn't take much notice of how he's treated as he makes his way around the building. He's been a fixture at the various Pemberley offices since he won his first internship—submitting the application under Fitz's name was one of the few times in his life he can remember purposely lying to anyone—but for the first time it strikes him what a welcome change it is to certain _other_ reactions he's gotten lately.

"Oh, hey," See says, snapping her fingers as if she's only just remembered. She shuffles a few folders on her desk. "We're about done with the new app site mockups if you want to take a look. The shoot went really well. Inez, do you have them handy? I'm not on the network right now."

"Yeah, I've got 'em." To William, she adds, "She means nobody stormed out of the studio like last time. I'm still not too impressed with this agency. But everything looks great so far. We haven't quite landed on a color scheme, so a lot of this is still fluid."

"All I know is we're not sticking with that hideous blue!"

Inez rolls her eyes and William has to bite back a laugh. Not that he'll ever have cause to admit it to anyone, but the lunch trucks aren't the only reason he tries to stop by this department every day.

She clicks around on her laptop for a minute to bring the mockups onto the big monitor between two wide windows. The layouts are beautiful, sleek and modern, with crisp photography and several inventive new branding ideas—some he hadn't even considered before seeing them in the design phases. He's already seen these in various stages, in planning meetings and in emails, and sometimes on Gigi's screen as she focuses on whatever component with which she's been asked to assist. The ginkgo leaves used in many of the background images were her idea, he knows, one of their mother's favorites.

Pemberley's still evolving under William's hand, still trying to find its course in the absence of his parents at the helm. The move to digital content had been in the works long before he'd even finished high school. Most of what he does wouldn't have been possible without the work his parents had done in modernizing the company. He can't help but feel a pang whenever they announce some new content that would have made his father's entire face light up with excitement or his mother to stay up until all hours of the night sketching storyboards.

See and Inez leave him with the monitor, and other members of the team drift in and out when their breaks end and meetings begin. Before long, it's time to make his way down to the conference room on two for the campaign review, where the lawyers will try to slash everything to the bone, and Fitz will get angry that he can't reach through the video connection to put it all back, and Gigi will text him three or six or eleven times with animated emoji that roll their eyes and multiple variations on "don't they know who you are!!!! lol"s. At least half of her messages will also include what she thinks are sly, oblique references to the new friend she's made, the one she says is "soooo nice, I knew you were holding out on me!" The one who, even from hundreds of miles away, makes William's hands start to sweat and his brain to freeze up.

But there's a warm, spicy quesadilla waiting for him, too, and that's reason enough to keep the smile on his face well into the shouting match that erupts when someone suggests that print advertising for web content isn't worth the effort Pemberley will pour into it. That, and nothing else.

Really.


End file.
